by: dr. nili kaplan-myrth
have you ever had someone tell you a story and you wished that you could record every word the person said, to share it with the world? that used to happen every now and then in family medicine. we hear stories that are painful, or funny, or give us pause, and we file them away in our charts and in our hearts.
with the pandemic, it feels as if there is a moral imperative, a greater urgency, to share what is said. patients sit across from me every day now, on the red sofa that is the hallmark of my little office, and they tell me about their lives during the pandemic, and i think, “the world needs to know this.” not the specifics of people’s lives, not the personal or medical details, but their messages need to be heard, the voices of the community need to be broadcast on loudspeakers so that someone in leadership, someone with the power to effect change, will hear them.
three weeks ago, at our first “jabapalooza” — an immunization event that i organized with the help of medical students and community volunteers to immunize 220 people in the community — the city set up barricades on the street in front of my family medicine office, and we set up chairs and tables to get to work. then i got into my car to drive to the home of a person whose wife had reached out to me. i arrived with a photographer and reporter from maclean’s, and we were all invited into his home to stand at his bedside and hear his story.